Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

Holiday Inn Blu-ray Movie Review

Yes, fifteen days of work a year does sound good!

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 15, 2014

It may be an unfair advantage to couch the following trivia question within a review for Holiday Inn, a clue of sorts which will probably instantly provide the answer to anyone who knows a bit about the film, but back in the Dark Ages when I was studying Music Theory in college, we were asked if we knew the only song in American chart history to make it to the Top 10 which started with seven consecutive half steps. The answer, of course, is Irving Berlin's "White Christmas," but only if you skip Berlin's intro and go right to the "I'm dreaming of a White Christmas" part. Those seven half steps had evidently been lingering in Berlin's mind for some time, since Berlin evidently pitched (sorry) the melody to Fred Astaire back when both were churning out material for RKO in the 1930s. Also taking up some cranial space in the Berlin noggin was an idea about a musical based upon an inn which only opened for holidays. Paramount wasn't especially known for its musicals during this period, but they made a virtually risk free decision to sign Berlin to write the score for what would ultimately become known as Holiday Inn. While structurally the film tends to play out as a series of vignettes built around the various holidays depicted, there's a through line of enterprising entrepreneurs trying to make a go of it with a niche hotel, a plot point that would be mined again a bit over a decade later when Berlin, star Bing Crosby and Paramount revisited the basic idea to fashion a new film emblazoned with the title of Holiday Inn's most durable song, White Christmas.

Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire portray song and dance men Jim Hardy and Ted Hanover, who have conquered the New York cabaret scene with an act they share with Lila Dixon (Virginia Dale). Jim has proposed to Lila, and the two are on the verge of saying goodbye to show business, getting married and moving to a farm in Connecticut that Jim has had his eye on. However, it’s more than obvious that Lila has something else on her mind and Jim counts down the delights of their future together—and that something turns out to be a someone, namely Ted, for whom Lila has fallen. Ted wants to continue in show business with Lila at his side, and that seems to suit Lila just fine. The film’s opening musical sequence puts this all into a little stage vignette, with the trio’s routine supposedly revolving around a piece where Jim and Ted vie for Lila’s hand (talk about art imitating life).

When the bombshell is dropped on Jim, he reacts relatively well, wishing Ted and Lila luck and moving to Connecticut by himself. A montage soon shows that Jim’s dreams of being a gentleman farmer don’t exactly pan out the way he expected them to, and in a humorous reference, a telegram tells Ted that Jim has just gotten out of a sanitarium after having succumbed emotionally to the onslaught of duties required of a sole farmer wrangling lots of animals and upkeep. Back in the big city, Jim tells Ted he’s decided to convert the farm into Holiday Inn, a wayside that will only be open on fifteen national holidays. It doesn’t sound like much of a business plan, but of course this is Hollywood, and a musical to boot, so logic rarely has the upper hand.

A pretty young woman with stars in her eyes named Linda Mason (Marjorie Reynolds) soon enters the picture, ultimately matriculating to Connecticut to ostensibly audition for Jim, only to find out Jim is still struggling with the ins and outs (or perhaps inns and outs) of getting his holiday themed establishment open and running. On Christmas Day he’s still shuttered, but he at least has the wherewithal to sing Linda his newest song, “White Christmas.”

Romantic sparks seems to be flying between the two, and Jim finally does get the inn up and running, but soon enough Ted re-enters the picture, albeit soused out of his mind after having been dumped by Lila. Ted ends up doing an impromptu dance with Linda, and though too drunk to really remember it, appears to be threatening the domestic bliss of Jim yet again. That plays into what is arguably Holiday Inn’s one controversial element, a big production number built around Lincoln’s Birthday that has Der Bingle and the lovely Marjorie Reynolds proclaiming the glories of the sixteenth president—in blackface (ostensibly to keep Ted from recognizing Linda). It’s one of those jaw dropping moments where contemporary minds will no doubt be asking, “Was this ever ‘okay’?”

Ted is soon the third wheel at Holiday Inn, trying to woo Linda away to be his new partner, especially after Hollywood comes calling looking for the next—well, Astaire and Rogers. The roiling romantic triangle provides most of the through line for Holiday Inn, while a series of production numbers built around various holidays allows Berlin to offer some new tunes (as well as chestnuts like “Easter Parade”).

There’s no real drama in Holiday Inn, and in fact the triangle aspect of the film is a bit forced quite a bit of the time. That’s more than offset by the film’s inherent charms (despite the appalling blackface sequence). The film was being shot when Pearl Harbor was attacked, and some quick revisions led to a big rootin’ tootin’ Fourth of July sequence where America’s nascent military might is celebrated. Berlin, one of the proudest immigrant Americans in history, makes no bones about his love of his adopted land, and that love suffuses a lot of Holiday Inn with the warm, cozy feel of rampant nostalgia.

Holiday Inn Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Holiday Inn is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Universal Studios with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.35:1. Universal doesn't seem to have done any major work on this title, which may lead some who approach catalog titles released by the studio with baited breath. There is a natural looking grain field in evidence throughout Holiday Inn, though ironically there are a couple of instances that look like digital sharpening, with slight but noticeable haloing. Overall, though, this is a nicely organic looking presentation, one with good, deep blacks and nicely modulated gray scale. The encode has no problems resolving busy elements like snowfall or some of the tweedy patterns of the costumes. Detail, sharpness and clarity are all well above average. The film is rife with optical effects (especially with regard to the calendar elements that introduce various holidays), and those show more dirt, grain and softness than the transfer as a whole.

Note: Screenshots 21-25 are from the colorized version. This is an effort by Legend Films, which also releases its own colorized Blu-ray product (March of the Wooden Soldiers). While this is relatively restrained as far as these things go, the color is not really very convincing, and in fact there are several scenes where it's not even covering the whole frame (watch carefully in some of the club footage, and you'll see the bottom of the frame, which is where the audience sits, is still in black and white).

Holiday Inn Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Holiday Inn's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track has weathered the ravages of time surprisingly well, with Berlin's music (and Robert Emmett Dolan's Oscar nominated orchestrations and underscore) sounding nicely full bodied, especially in the midrange. Singing and instrumental elements come through without any distortion, and even hiss is relatively minimal. Dialogue is also presented cleanly and clearly. This obviously doesn't have the flash and vividness of more contemporary soundtracks, but for something from 1942, it's largely problem free.

Holiday Inn Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• A Couple of Song and Dance Men (480i; 44:35) profiles Crosby and Astaire, and includes interviews with Astaire's daughter Ava.


• All-Singing, All-Dancing (480i; 7:15) looks at the film's musical sequences.


• Coloring a Classic (480i; 8:51) is for the film purist in need of a good primal scream therapy session.


• Feature Commentary includes Ken Barnes along with some archival snippets from Crosby, Astaire and screenwriter John Scott Trotter.


• Theatrical Trailer (480i; 2:16)

For the record, there's also a colorized version of the film available on the disc.

Holiday Inn Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Holiday Inn features Crosby and Astaire at the top of their respective games, and the Berlin song score is a lot of fun (even his "Abraham" would have been great without the squirm inducing racial element). Breezily directed by Mark Sandrich, the film isn't especially memorable in its putative dramatic elements (which are admittedly pretty slight to begin with), but the musical elements are top notch. Technical merits here are generally very strong, and Holiday Inn comes Recommended.